Uniface goes Vista

Venerable tool gets set for the future

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Compuware aims to be one of the first out of the blocks with full Microsoft Vista support for its Uniface development tool.

Announced this week, Uniface 9.1, the latest version of the well-established application building tool, also offers upgraded features for developing web applications.

"The two key areas for Uniface have always been developer productivity and platform flexibility. We have to make sure we support the major platforms as they come to market. We will have Vista support available soon after the launch to end users at the end of January," says Ton Blunkers, product manager for Uniface at Compuware.

"And because Uniface is not dependent on the underlying technology, developers will be able to get all the look and feel of Vista just by moving across from Microsoft XP."

Uniface sits at the heart of Compuware's developer portfolio and can link to a range of other tools including Uniface Flow, a business process modelling tool, and Uniface View, a web-based application tool. It also has links to Compuware's Changepoint application portfolio management package and its recently-acquired requirements planning product OptimalTrace (formerly SteelTrace).

Blunkers says one of the key roles for Uniface 9.1 will be to help users migrate legacy client/server applications to a web environment. New features to support fashionable concepts such as Service Oriented Architecture and XHTML objects are also included.

Blunkers says Compuware is in the process of building support for the AJAX technology so Uniface can create so-called Rich Internet Applications and thin-client applications for mobile devices. "Developers will then be able to re-use the models for web applications with AJAX on thin clients," he says.

Uniface was first developed for DEC VMS computers in the 1980s and has remained a popular development tool with a loyal user base ever since. ®